


Sooner or Later.

by maerkus



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Death, Gen, Horror, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22817554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maerkus/pseuds/maerkus
Summary: Yharnam exists in our world, trapped in a perpetual time loop and expunged from history.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Sooner or Later.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a copy-paste of a verse description I have on my tumblr rp blog, bellbeckoned. Canon-typical trigger warnings apply. Mass-death and disease are referenced.

In the Atlantic Ocean, west of the British Isles and the Celtic Sea, there was a land not seen on any map. An island, it was. And yet it was no well-known nation-state. In fact, it was not a known nation-state at all.

Not anymore. It was as though all outside memory of Yharnam was simply erased. And indeed, it had been. It had been after that horrific tragedy. No, horrific tragedies, plural: the excavation of old tombs, the horror of the small Fishing Hamlet, the iron fist of the church, the burning of Old Yharnam, the city built over the ashes, and, of course, the Plague. The Hunt. Those long, awful nights. The stench of burning flesh, burning fur, rotting corpses, blood, feces, that peculiar Yharnam madness, all of it clung eternally to the foggy air. Caskets were chained shut with silver and unceremoniously leaned against railings near long-abandoned carriages full of discarded luggage left by those desperate to escape. It didn’t work, of course.

A thick, thick fog seemed to eternally hang over the island, and with no lighthouse nor appropriate signals in operation, any and all ships which had attempted since then to make the journey to it, or past it, ended up shipwrecked, their sailors in watery graves. As time marched on, one may foolishly believe that someone, surely, would have found it. The airplane, modern boats, one of those must be able to reach Yharnam? No. Any planes mysteriously went down at sea the moment they got close, their engines suddenly shutting off. No GPS could find it. No satellite could find it.

It was as though there were an invisible barrier, something blocking it out from any and all detection, any and all connection, to the outside world, including time. If one were to ask a Yharnamite what year it was, they would not say it was anno domini 2020. No. They would give a date approximately 200 to 150 years earlier, depending on how far into the loop they had progressed- or, rather, regressed. Progression, regression, it all melded together after a couple of time loops, really. Not that anyone was aware of those loops. No one on the inside.

… There had been a time, however, when outsiders could enter. There was a time when the Healing Church was known all through Europe, its central Grand Cathedral beckoning any of the sick to be cleansed with the help of the Old Blood. The gothic architecture of Yharnam was not archaic at that time. Back then, the son of an Irishman and Frenchwoman, a man by the name of Gascoigne, anointed Father Gascoigne by the Catholic Church, came to Yharnam. Back then, before the plague, before the experiments, back when the Fishing Hamlet still prospered, he had come by ship, and begun life anew as a member of the revered Healing Church. For that noble purpose had he made his advent there. He found a wife, and together they had two daughters. All was well. But once people began to become beasts, he became a Hunter. Most people did, really, in those days. He and Henryk made quite the duo.

And then he learned too much, the Father, of the sinister inner workings, the sinister underbelly of the renowned Healing Church which the Yharnamites blindly worshipped. He was demoted, forced to dig graves in a decrepit graveyard called the Tomb of Oedon. The Vicar had been very clear: speak a word of this to anyone, and your family dies first. After that, Father Gascoigne’s bouts of dissociation began to worsen. He lost his sight, his eyes too sensitive to the light to be unwrapped at any time. He had to start wrapping his hands, lest they be burned by silver. Entering buildings where incense burned, including his own home, gave him horrible headaches.

But if he could remain a hunter, continue to protect his family from the beasts? God, was it worth it. Worth it until his wife was slaughtered by one. Worth it until he became one. Worth it until he had to be put down like the mad dog, mad werewolf he’d become by another Hunter.

And it would repeat. Over, and over, and over again. He did not know this, of course. In anno domini 2020, it was beginning to near the end of this particular repeat of events. His sight was gone. In order for him to find his way home, his family needed to play the tiny music box more and more often.

“Beasts,” he hissed as he took his axe from one near his feet. Blood pooled around its corpse, soaking the soles of his black shoes, dripping down onto a casket in its hole waiting to be covered up with dirt, “and beasts, and beasts, and beasts…”

The Father took up his shovel and continued to dig yet another 6-foot hole for another chained casket. Dozens of them were leaned against walls. Graves were piled up against each other as though delegated into tight groups and ordered to stay there by a harsh commander, only their orders to spread out never came, so they were left cluttered. Where else were they to go?

“Beasts everywhere.”

He began to cackle. What a lot he’d been given in life. He’d be one of them, sooner or later.

And unless an outsider came to fix all of this, put an end to the Hunt? It would only continue to happen, again and again, the tragic fate of Yharnam and all who lived there, cursed to become beasts over and over and over again, cursed to relive all of this over and over and over again without their knowledge, due to the sins of a few. All of them.


End file.
